Few computer-related acts bring the full Maximum PC ethos to bear as much as extreme overclocking. Damn the torpedoes; give ‘er MOAR POWER! and so on. Fridays are always slow news days, and the Friday between Christmas and New Year’s seems to be doubly so, so why not take advantage of the lull and shine on a spotlight on a pair of overclocking feats that showed up on the radar over the past couple of days?

Pushing your PC to its limits has obvious inherent dangers; overclocking your CPU can definitely bust your rig if you push it too far. That being said, reasonable overclocking doesn’t actually carry too much risk – normally. Right before Christmas, one overclocker’s Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 mobo crashed, then burned (literally) in the midst of a lightweight stress test. After he posted the video on YouTube, Gigabyte looked into the problem, and apparently, it wasn’t a case of crap luck. Yesterday, Gigabyte’s Chinese branch announced the faulty CPU VRM is a widespread issue and recalled all GA-X79-UD3, GA-X79-UD5, GA-X79-UD7 and G1.Assassin 2 mobos. US users, meanwhile, get a critical BIOS update.

Intel was hoping its Ultabook concept would snag a 40 percent share of the overall notebook market by 2012, and while that seems a bit optimistic, market research firm IHS iSuppli forecasts Ultrabooks will account for no less than 43 percent of all laptops by 2015. Neither of those memos have found their way over to Gigabyte or MSI.

Wait, wait, wait just a minute, isn't the Killer E2100 Network Processing Unit a product of Bigfoot Networks? It most certainly is, but what many people don't know is that Qualcomm Atheros somewhat quietly scooped Bigfoot up a couple of months ago, a purchase that made sense considering Bigfoot was using Qualcomm hardware anyway and tweaking it with their own software. In any event, Qualcomm Atheros is now fully in charge and the company really wants to get the word out that its Killer E2100 NIC is integrated and available in new Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 motherboards based on Intel's X79 Express chipset. So does Gigabyte.

Having trouble deciding between a notebook, tablet, or desktop PC? You're not alone, and Gigabyte hopes everyone who's on the fence about which type of PC to purchase will consider the company's new Booktop T1132, the first and only 3-in-1 notebook on the market, according to Gigabyte. The trick is in the rotatable docking station, which transforms the T1132 into all three types of PCs.

Gigabyte has come up with a way to make its UEFI BIOS interface even easier to navigate while simultaneously jumping on the 3D bandwagon, but not in the way you think. In reality, Gigabyte's 3D BIOS technology is a fancy way of navigating your motherboard's BIOS with an isometric graphical view of the board and all of its parts, and it's actually pretty cool.

Gigabyte lead the initial charge with early support for boot drivers bigger than 2.2TB, but while others worked on fixing this with UEFI implementations, they instead kept plugging away on the bios. The company claimed to be using a “HybridEFI”, but let’s be clear here. HybridEFI is a marketing term; it actually has nothing to do with EFI as we know it. When asked about the obvious oversight, Gigabyte claimed they wanted to do it right, and we finally have a chance to see what they have in mind.

At least two top-tier motherboard makers are no longer expecting to hit their board shipment targets for 2011. This is to be somewhat expected, given the frequent delays that plagued AMD's Bulldozer launch and with Intel's Sandy Bridge-E platform still sitting around the corner. The DIY crowd appears to be willing to wait for next-generation technology rather than building or upgrading to current gen parts.

Sometimes, Maximum PCs can be minimum PCs. Bigger isn’t always better. Gigabyte is giving love to the little guys with their new mini-ITX HTPC motherboard, gracefully named the A75N-USB3. As you may have guessed from the name, it’s based around AMD’s A75 Fusion chipset and packs in four speedy USB 3.0 ports, but that’s not all.

Many of you are waiting with bated breath for Intel to release its upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processors and can't wait to build an LGA 2011 system. If you choose not to, however, it won't be for lack of motherboard options, especially if you're a fan of Gigabyte. After posting spy shots of its G1.Assassin 2 motherboard, Gigabyte just sent us an email loaded with images of each and every X79 motherboard it currently has on tap. Photo gallery after the break.